The present invention relates to a liquid cooling system for integrated circuits.
A prior art cooling system for large scale integrated circuit chips as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,188 issued to E. A. Wilson et al involves the use of a liquid coolant heat exchanger having a flexible, heat conductive wall. The heat exchanger is mounted so that the flexible wall is in close proximity to a surface of the substrate on the other surface of which the integrated circuit chips are mounted. A low thermal impedance contact is made through the flexible wall of the heat exchanger between the substrate to be cooled and the coolant flowing through the heat exchanger because of the pressure of the coolant in the heat exchanger.
The flexible wall of the heat exchanger is formed of copper and has a thickness in the range between 0.05 mm and 0.25 mm. Because of the small thickness of the flexible wall, the pressure of the coolant in the heat exchanger reaches a limit which is unacceptably lower than is required to maintain the temperature of the integrated circuit chips in the micropackage below their maximum operating temperature. In addition, during replacement or repair greatest care must be taken to ensure against possible breakage of the thin flexible wall of the heat exchanger, which could lead to the leakage of liquid coolant to micropackages.